Unlike many Presidential biographers, Mr. Freedman keeps his sights squarely on Roosevelt the man even after F.D.R. enters the White House.

Mr. Ambrose, the Presidential biographer, argued that these are words more suitable to an older era.

Last week, David Talbot, the editor of Salon, the on-line magazine that broke the Henry Hyde story, appeared on both the network and cable talk shows, while Newsweek's Howard Fineman and Michael Isikoff, Time's Karen Tumulty and the Presidential biographer David Maraniss cruised the cable networks.

More than most Presidential biographers, Mr. McCullough manages to keep Truman himself at the center of the story once he enters the White House, rather than allowing him to become obscured by the complexity of events and institutions that surrounded him.

Doris Kearns Goodwin, the Presidential biographer, said with the campaign ending she felt a profound sense of disappointment, particularly after the hopes raised by Mr. Clinton's ambitious candidacy of 1992.

Then the cable news networks whiled away hour after hour by interviewing Presidential historians, Presidential biographers, bureau chiefs, former White House special counsels, former senior Justice Department officials.

He added, "I don't think there's ever been a Presidential biographer who has been able to see his subject's life happening as a close eyewitness."

James McGregor Burns: Presidential biographer, authority on leadership studies, Woodrow Wilson Professor (emeritus) of Political Science at Williams College, and scholar at the James McGregor Burns Academy of Leadership at the University of Maryland, College Park.

"It's an excellent decision," said Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., the historian and Presidential biographer.

Presidential biographers have often been brought to consider the issue of presidential religion.